This Woman’s Headphones Exploded While She Was on a Flight

When you're taking a long flight, an ideal way to pass the time is to lean back, listen to music, and maybe even get some shut eye. Right?

Not so much for an Australian woman whose catnap was interrupted when her battery-operated headphones EXPLODED two hours into a flight from Beijing to Melbourne, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said in a release.

"As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face," the woman, who has decided to remain anonymous, told the ATSB. "I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck. I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire."

Luckily a flight attendant was nearby to douse the headphones with a bucket of water. The ATSB reports that the torched headphones were put in the bucket in the back of the plane, which smelled like burned hair and melted plastic for the rest of the flight. According to the Washington Post, the melted headphone cover and battery stuck to the floor and had to be scraped off. The passenger wasn't seriously injured.

The Guardianreports that the incident occurred on February 19, and the ATSB believes that batteries likely caught fire during the flight.

Although the ATSB's press release warned air travelers about the dangers of traveling with battery operated devices in general, it did not name the brand of the specific headphones that exploded.